Economic Opportunity

After some intra-party haggling among Democrats, on May 21 the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted 62-38 to end debate on Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), a procedure that will likely lead to the initiative’s passage in the upper chamber.

President Obama rarely misses an opportunity to pontificate about his determination to help the American middle class, close the income inequality gap and reduce poverty. Obama has failed miserably at all three.

Here are three things to keep in mind before getting too excited by the February Bureau of Labor Statistics’ predictably cheery jobs report. BLS announced that the economy added 295,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate declined to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent.

Jeff Greene is a multi-billionaire who made his money in real estate and speculation in subprime mortgage securities. Recently, he warned that “Our economy is in deep trouble.” A leading reason, he explained, was that “globalization and the exponential growth of technology, which have destroyed millions of jobs already, will undoubtedly eliminate millions and millions more jobs during the next several years.

“The state of the Union is strong,” President Obama told the nation last night. Depending on your personal situation, how extensively you follow what’s happening in the world and your level of respect for power and authority, you may believe that.

American workers are under siege. Many are unemployed, and many who want full-time employment have to settle for part-time work. Wages are increasing slowly, if at all, for workers. And jobs paying a middle-class income are increasingly hard to find.

The high cost of medical care is of great concern to most Americans. Insurance helps to ease health care expenses, but insurance also is expensive. Obamacare is supposed to improve matters, but the jury is still out on just how much so – if at all.

One of the favorite mantras of mass immigration advocates, which they endlessly repeat, is “labor shortage.” To hear them tell it, we have always had a labor shortage and always will – even though we’ve had the highest sustained level of immigration in our history for more than two decades. Somehow the “shortage” always remains, which is used as justification for even more immigration.

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Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization that relies solely on donations. CAPS works to formulate and advance policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California, the U.S. and the world at levels which will preserve the environment and a good quality of life for all.